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Delicious-Day-3332 t1_jd6vq83 wrote

ESA & NASA better get there before CHINA! Speed it up, folks!

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MT_Kinetic_Mountain t1_jd7mnfl wrote

New space race, lads. Be there or be square😎

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PineappleLemur t1_jdc3dpa wrote

Would be nice if that happens.. if countries focus on space races instead of wars.

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MT_Kinetic_Mountain t1_jdc5t9c wrote

Wasn't the last space race just War: Lite? Definitely preferred to War: Nuclear Annihilation, but only because space is way cooler

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sithelephant t1_jd5hk2t wrote

'Permanent moon base' - 'that word, I do not think it means what you think it means'.

No permanent habitation on or around the moon, very close to the same number of flights as apollo, with nearly the same cadence, for basically the same money.

(taking for the moment that the lunar lander solution would be something like BOs lander for BO money, as starship lander raises the unfortunate 'can do every single thing the rest of the program can do' issue)

We have no idea what we might put on the moon at $10000/kg (F9 cost for starship, times about ten for extra delta-v with depots). The current hardware is all designed to be two orders of magnitude more expensive.

(I am not saying spacex is the only solution, just that it's looking like several vendors might be qualified in the nearish future for launching largish payloads to LEO at $1K/kg.)

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GothicGolem29 t1_jdalkd5 wrote

Im a bit confused what was your point? That there won’t be a moon base that it will be different? Nothing to do with how you worded it I’m just a bit confused

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sithelephant t1_jdanidq wrote

That the Artemis program has a depressing paucity of ambition and that inbuilt into its DNA is several assumptions that are nearly barking mad.

If it all goes perfectly right, and every part of it performs as well as might be hoped, you get about 20 tons to and from the lunar surface, for a total of around some hundred billion dollars.

This works out to around five million dollars a kilo - you're never ever doing serious 'moonbase' type stuff on that sort of launch cost.

  • Among some of the baked-in assumptions are that propellant transfer in orbit is impossible, assembly in orbit is impossible, crew transfer in orbit is undesired. (These drive the use of SLS).

Then the selection of the gateway orbit was driven largely by Orion requirements, which is a whole nother pile of fish.

The use of SLS then sets the price expectation for Orion and all hardware that goes near the moon, again ballooning costs.

My hope for the program is that perhaps the translunar flyby flight by SLS goes ahead, at which time Starship is flying, and the new generation of launchers is coming online making a wholesale reconsidering of the program and scrapping most of the legacy elements worthwhile.

Leading to hundred ton payloads landing on the moon for less outlay than the two ton ones.

As context - if SpaceX gets propellant transfer working, with a couple of depots in orbit, and charges for launch the same price /kg as Falcon heavy, you end up with cargo on the moon costing $10K/kg, not $5000K/kg.

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GothicGolem29 t1_jdcscxo wrote

…. Theres no paucity of ambition the goal is to buil a moon base and get to Mars that’s a huge ambition.

Ok that sounds good.

Depends on what you defending a moorbaden as I’m sure they could create some kind of habitation for people with a hundred tons. And even if we don’t get to that we still put the first woman on the moon and first person of colour which would be a huge success.

If it was impossible why are the brilliant minds at NASA planning it?

Ok

Ok interesting idea thanks for explaining.

Idk I disagree on some stuff like if it was truly impossible NASA would not be attempting it

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